Sunday: AN OUTING! P and I went to the Gloriana concert at St Mark's Fitzroy. Bus to Smith Street, and iced coffee in Gluttony. (A victory for consumers as we didn't pay for the antipasto which didn't arrive on time - is there a Smith eatery we can trust?)
The concert was all songs about the Virgin (that one!). Unfortunately, it started with a piece by the fraudulent Hildegard of Bingen (who ever heard of Bingen?), who was invented by feminists in the 70s. But after that it was all right. The mass was a bit drawn out; the Council of Trent was dead right to cut the Gloria! But then, it was a hot day.
Midway thru I decided to sit on my kneeler as the pew was getting too hard. So did Peter and I suspect half the audience.

Saturday: B Dickins came round today with lunch (fresh humous, Turkish bread, cakes) and stayed awhile chatting.
Meanwhile, Peter was visiting the rellos at the end of the street. His niece (Thea) is off to Sydney to upgrade herself from naturopathist to MD to gain credibility.
His brother lives in Chiswick and works teaching people how to find dodgy stuff at Heathrow. (Ex-army, you know.)
No doubt we'll catch up with them again before they shove off.

Friday: At last! Something happened. Frank came round for tea tonight, and we ordered in E-lounge pizzas. (Napoletana with lots of anchovies, and roast potato with rosemary and artichokes, for a touch of class). Frank has successfully done his Christmas Oratorio for the Vic College of the Arts, and has a concert with Gloriana on Sunday which I'll try to get to, as it is only at St Mark's in Fitzroy.
Peter is having lunch at the boathouse tomorrow with his brother and his wife and one of their daughters. They'll drop in here on the way back home. It turns out that the daughter, Thea, lives just at the end of our street in Nicholson Street, but she's moving to Sydney imminently. (To become a doctor!). C'est la vie! I don't think I'd make it to the boathouse just yet! But I think I can make it via the bus and tram to St Mark's on Sunday afternoon.

Thursday, Friday: exactly the same. No visitors, much the same to eat, lots of sleep. Read the papers carefully. I told you it would be boring. The only interesting stuff is a message from Peter's long lost half brother saying he is in town and can he get in touch. P has left a message back. He is in Australia for the wedding of P's niece last Saturday and is presumably in Melbourne visiting his daughter. (Another longlost niece). Complicated enough?

Wednesday: Dad finished painting the front fence this morning, so it is now all fixed and intact and green. After that we went to the health centre so I could have my red blood cell enhancing injection (yuk!). The nurse spent a huge amount of time checking where it had to be injected (answer: really anywhere), then had to do it twice as she didn't inject it all at once. Interestingly, she seemed to have no idea how the Medicareplus would affect the Health Centre funding (I thought what she did today, i.e. give me an injection, for free would attract a payment under the new system). Boring! Boring!
Another roast beef roll for lunch then a snooze after a visit from Jo to (among other things) finalise a few loose ends from the Melbourne Uni. students marks. Then a snooze!
Tonight Pierre made a chicken salad which was yummy, so I had some of that and some prawns (I told you it would be tejious). My weight is only up marginally in spite of all this stuffing.

Tuesday: Papa attacked the front fence today and the Paterson Street side is now repaired and green. I'm being really greedy at lunchtimes and consuming roast beef rolls like they were going out of fashion. I think my father really likes getting takeaways for lunch (he gets hamburgers and the like). All I seemed to do today was sleep, but that was nice.

Monday: Father has nearly finished repairing and painting the back fence. It looks very salubrious. Tomorrow, he'll have a go at the front fence. Maria is ecstatic in her praise of his prowess as carpenter, painter and handyman. (Also relieved having watched as the fence looked like caving in over a period of years.
Marg and Clive (of Yanakie) visited this arvo. on one of their rare visits to Melbourne. They have definitely decided to build some more Singapore Deep, this time just a double, at the top of their land. (The trees surrounding it are already grown). It is kind of Federation Square in style with an offset door/window which the architect assures them will work (three engineers have checked it).
They are booked up with their present place every night to New Year which is pretty good going. So it looks as though the new place is not too much of a risk. They were in town sussing out some updates for the fittings for the old Singapore Deep without a lot of success.
They have been successful so far in preventing new windfarms round the prom, and Marg is, believe it or not, the activist President of the new Gippsland branch of the National Trust. No tea parties here!
They are v. disillusioned with the Labor Party who have lied to them, what a surprise! They don't think minister Delahunty has even read the guidelines for windfarms.

Sunday: Busy day today. First, a visit from Barry Dickins in the morning. BD has been doing a lot of work in schools (artist in residence) most recently at Princes Hill Primary. He likes doing it, though is a bit at the mercy of the permanent teachers as far as what you can do and how. He toddled off,
then this arvo Lorraine Ellis dropped in followed by my Olds. It's my mother's birthday tomorrow and Peter had been shopping for flowers and a book beforehand. She loved both.
I had a snooze and woke up to find Sally here, closely followed by Frank, for dinner. Roast chook, which I am going to try to have. Will report later on the result. See: I told you this blog would be boring.

Saturday: Peter is just back from the shopping, done alone as Frank is at rehearsal. He didn't take the jeep, so came back looking somewhat like a packhorse. We are going to have to bunker in tonight to ignore IT. Pierre got some good chocolates for comfort food.

Time to start my own blog, seeing I spend so much time perving on Lesley and Frank's. Trouble is, at present not much happens to me so the detail might get a bit tejious.
Never mind. Complaints department is not receiving.